What happens when two cultures interact ? How does the crossing of boundaries – a perennial human need - impact on cultural identity and on the nature of communication ? Intercultural encounters can take place through human journeys, such as pilgrimages, tourism and movements of conquest, or through the circulation of cultural artefacts such as texts, visual art or other media. Whatever the form of the encounter or its motivation – belligerent invasion, the need for discovery or the wish to communicate with others – such encounters are usually defining moments, calling complex processes into play.
A crucial transfer takes place when two cultures meet, as the language, concepts, customs and art forms of one culture pass into the interpretative realm of another. By means of a process of ‘translation’, the observed culture is understood through foreign terms, different temporal frames and different media, and is thus transformed. This raises the issue of our cultural and temporal situatedness, and the effect this has on our (lack of) ability fully to appreciate other cultures. Similarly the transmission of a literary text into another culture often gives rise to new interpretations, through many kinds of rewriting, both intertextual and intermedial. Active textual reappropriation is in fact a highly productive strategy, connecting literature across national or temporal borders.
We invite proposals for twenty-minute papers that explore French/francophone studies and its many intercultural encounters (across all periods), and whose approaches to these encounters may include anthropology, cultural studies, French/francophone, comparative and translation studies. What happens when French/francophone studies incorporates the artefacts and optics of different cultural others ?
Suggested topics include, but are not limited to :

Travel grants will be available ; students presenting will be given priority.

Please send abstracts (250 – 300 words) for twenty-minute papers (in French or English) along with the name of your institution, the title of your PhD and your year of study to rewart02 chez qub.ac.uk and M.Mallia chez soton.ac.uk no later than 3rd March 2013. Informal enquiries are also welcome.